THE STRANGER GETS A GIFT/ Work-in-progress

One performer and one spectator in an experimental intermedia installation.

Previous reservation is necessary, contact us to book the time you will come on pr@alfredvedvore.cz, nebo na tel: 775 186 860. 45 min open rehearsal for one-person-audience

The Stranger Gets a Gift by Mexican artist Cristina Maldonado is part performance, part installation, but most of all it is a special service offered by the artist - like when you go to the hairdresser, or to the dentist. At the same time Maldonado uses the project to explore the potential and limits of space-time shared between two people who do not know each other: one artist and one audience member whom we can call a guest or "stranger". This guest is invited to share a bit of information with the artist, creating a bond based on mutual respect, sealed in the end with a gift.

The project will be presented in two different formats, two variations of the services offered: one called Amuleto and the other Reminiscencia.

Amuleto, which is being created in cooperation with visual artist Kateřina Fojtíková, is both a workshop and a video-installation. Spectators gets to choose several of their personal wishes, restraints and/or troubles to share with the performer. By interconnecting them an amulet is created, an object of symbolic power.

Reminiscencia, whose co-creator is composer and musician Bethany Lacktorin, first attempts to disorient visitors through the use of multiple sound motives, freeing them from their everyday ways of perception, and then - by interconnecting the resulting experiences - creating a new, personalized sound memory.

21.3. – Amuleto (Fojtíková/Maldonado) in Czech, English and Spanish
17h, 18h, 19h, 20h, 21h

22.3. – Reminiscencia (Lacktorin/Maldonado) in English
17h, 18h, 19h, 20h, 21h

23.3. – Amuleto a Reminiscencia (Fojtíková/Lacktorin/Maldonado) in English, in Czech
10h, 11h, 12h

The Stranger Gets a Gift is an ever-changing research project (work-in-progress). The project will culminate in a premiere performance in October 2013.

Cristina Maldonado (Mex)
is an artist whose background in body movement lends a unique approach to her visual and conceptual experiments with video, sound, collage and performance, giving a palpable tactility that not only invokes the audience sensually, but also leads us to the realm of comfort and beyond.
Her work unifies experimental theater, dance, participatory art, new and old media, her topics are body, communication and intimacy. She creates experiential frames connecting installations, videos and live action. She works alone or in collaboration with artists from different disciplines and has performed in Mexico, Eastern Europe, New York and Montreal. Since 2003 she has been directing various art and theater projects in Czech Republic.

Bethany Lacktorin (USA)
Korean-American sound artist, engineer, multi-instrumentalist currently living and working in Prague. Performing as improvisational multi-instrumentalist, she works with various electronic devices, violin, vocalisations, collaborative and interactive sound sources. A freelance audio engineer for TV and Film post production, Bethany has earned credit on several independent films and documentaries, recorded and released a handful of albums, and produced and performed in exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe.

Kateřina Fojtíková (CZ)
studied new media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. She works with videoart and in researching the language of media communication. She has worked on several theatre and performance projects (the Prague Quadrenniale, 4+4 Days in Motion, SimpleStory, Tunel, and Theorem of Wanting.